Awards:

Grammy Award for best song by a rap duo or group, National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences, 2001, for "Ms. Jackson," and
best rap album of the year, 2001, for
Stankonia
; Grammy Awards for album of the year, best rap album of the year, 2003,
for
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,
and best urban/alternative performance, 2003, for "Hey
Ya!"

Sidelights

André "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big
Boi" Patton make up OutKast, the Atlanta–bred duo whose
exuberant style has reshaped the sound of contemporary rap music. Their
fifth release,
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,
was actually dual solo records from each, and became one of the
best–selling records of 2003. It won not only that year's
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album of the Year, it took the Album of the
Year statue as well.

Propelled by the overwhelming success of André 3000's
infectious dance hit, "Hey Ya!"—a third
Grammy–winner that year—the CD went on to sell 3.5 million
copies. Releasing a pair of solo records under their OutKast name seemed
a risky move for the group, which had a loyal fan base and were one of
the first successful rap acts to emerge from the Atlanta music scene,
but proved once again that Benjamin and Patton had a sixth sense for
turning daring musical ideas into hit records. "Every album is a
risk," Benjamin told
New York Times
writer Lola Ogunnaike. "It's not like we make the easiest
music to swallow."

Benjamin and Patton were both born in 1975, and would later name both a
record release and their boutique label "Aquemini" after a
combination of their respective astrological signs—Benjamin, born
May 27, is a Gemini, while Patton's February 1 birthdate makes
him an Aquarius. Benjamin was the only child of Sharon Benjamin Hodo, a
real estate agent, and Lawrence Walker, a collections agent.
Patton's mother, Rowena, was a retail supervisor, and his father,
Tony Kearse, had been a sergeant in the Marine Corps. He was the first
of five children in the family, and initially dreamed of a career in pro
football, or child psychology. Benjamin thought about becoming an
architect before realizing that it would require him to take an
abundance of math classes.

The duo met Tri–Cities High School in East Point, Georgia, a
school geared toward the performing arts. It was fashion that initially
brought them together: "We were preps," Patton told
People
writer Chuck Arnold. "We wore loafers, argyle socks, and
V–neck sweaters with T–shirts. We were new to the school
and we didn't know anybody." But it was music that
cemented their friendship: both were fans of alternative hip–hop
acts like De La Soul, the Brand Nubians, and A Tribe Called Quest, and
also appreciated the genius of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and other
funk greats of the 1970s.

Benjamin and Patton wrote their first rap songs in class together, and
began making mix tapes in their spare time. Their first working name was
"2 Shades Deep," but they learned it was taken by another
act. They then dubbed themselves the Misfits, but found out that was
being used as well. Taking the "misfit" idea to the
dictionary, "we came across the word outcast," Benjamin
recalled in an interview for
Jet
with Marti Yarbrough, "and just kept the pronunciation key
spelling of it."

Around the same time that Benjamin left Tri–Cities High after the
eleventh grade, he and Patton met up with an Atlanta–area
production team called Organized Noize that had worked with R&B
group TLC. OutKast's first single, "Player's
Ball," was released by LaFace, the label of Atlanta record mogul
Antonio "LA" Reid in 1993, and reached No. 1 on the
Billboard rap singles chart the following year. They became the first
hip–hop act ever signed to LaFace, but Benjamin and Patton were
determined to chart a new course in the urban/rap/hip–hop scene.
"When I look at the rap videos, it's pretty much the same
video over and over," Benjamin told
Newsweek
journalist Allison Samuels. "A bunch of women in swimsuits and
the guys rapping about money or jewels. Me and Big Boi wanted to change
that."

Benjamin and Patton's first full LP,
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik,
was released in 1994, and reached No. 3 on the Billboard
R&B/hip–hop albums chart. It also helped to put Atlanta on
the map in the
urban–music scene. Before the success of OutKast and fellow
Georgians the Goodie Mob, rappers from the South received short shrift
in the music industry, which focused on the hard–core movers and
shakers from a New York–Los Angeles axis.

OutKast hit No. 1 on the Billboard R&B/hip–hop chart two
years later with their second effort,
ATLiens.
It sold 1.5 million copies, buoyed by the track "Elevators (Me
and You)." Their third CD, 1998's
Aquemini
went multi–platinum, but the single "Rosa Parks"
brought a lawsuit from the civil–rights heroine not long after it
reached No. 19 a year later. Parks sued the duo and their label for
using her name without permission, and the case would eventually go all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though
Aquemini
did not produce any other hit singles, it was enthusiastically received
by critics and included on several year–end polls of the best
releases of 1998.

Around this same time, Benjamin dropped the "Dre" tag he
had used for years in favor of the spacier "André
3000." He also became known for his flamboyant outfits, which
included platinum wigs, fake–fur trousers, and an array of
colorful suit–and–shirt combinations in eye–popping
plaids and patterns. The outrageous wardrobe seemed an update of the
funk superstar George Clinton, and Benjamin and Patton also borrowed the
word "stank" from the funk heyday of the 1970s. They
called their new Atlanta studio Stankonia, and dubbed their fourth
release that as well.

The 17 tracks on 2000's
Stankonia
included the hits "B.O.B. (Bombs over Baghdad)" and
"Ms. Jackson," and gave Benjamin and Patton two Grammy
Awards, one of them for Best Rap Album of the Year. Once again, critics
were ecstatic about the way in which OutKast brought together
old–school with a modern twist. This release, noted
Newsweek
reviewer Lorraine Ali, "continues OutKast's journey into
the weird with a sound that lies somewhere between the jamming madness
of Parliament–Funkadelic, the creme de menthe vocals of Al Green,
and the bumping beats of A Tribe Called Quest."

Stankonia
seemed to show the two high–school pals maturing into one of rap
music's more contemplative and inventive acts. The warring themes
on it, one critic felt, signified the coming–of–age of the
genre at a precise moment when its credibility was wavering.
"With unassuming brilliance, OutKast has finessed a major rift
that now runs through hip–hop," wrote
New York Times
music critic Jon Pareles. "On one side, the more commercial one,
are gangsta characters working ever more familiar variations on tales of
gunplay and sex.… On the other side, in a growing backlash, are
rappers who see gangsta rap reinforcing the ugliest stereotypes: no
longer the defiant power fantasies of inner–city underdogs, but a
demeaning show–business shtick that only pretends to be
'keeping it real.'"

Nearly three years passed before Benjamin and Patton returned with a new
record—but it was a dual CD that became one of the biggest hits
of the year.
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
came out on Arista in September of 2003.
Speakerboxxx
and
The Love Below
were essentially solo CDs from Benjamin and Patton, but packaged
together in a move that was initially viewed as potentially
career–damaging. The two records could not have been more
different in style, noted Kelefa Sanneh in a
New York Times
article. "
Speakerboxxx
is propelled by Big Boi's precise, sticky rhymes, and
The Love Below
floats along on Andre 3000's not–quite–angelic
falsetto singing," Sanneh asserted, and wondered if OutKast fans
would be happy with the package.

Critics loved the work, pronouncing it the duo's most daring to
date, and fans voted at both cash registers and on Internet download
sites. There was some cross–over between the two: Benjamin
co–wrote four tracks for Patton's
Speakerboxxx,
which was the more rap–flavored half of the release. It opened
with "GhettoMusick," which
Entertainment Weekly
critic Will Hermes found "a machine–gun–speed rap
reclaiming '80s electrofunk from hipster ironists while targeting
low–aiming rappers." Hermes found some missteps in
Speakerboxxx,
but noted its musical guest stars added to its charms. "Even the
old–school tracks have a twist, whether it's Jay–Z
rapping the hook of 'Flip Flop Rock,' or
'Reset,' with its dice–roll percussion and sermon
by Big Boi's Georgia neighbor Cee–Lo," Hermes
concluded.

Patton co–wrote the "Roses" track for
Benjamin's
The Love Below,
which was a more experimental, funk–and jazz–influenced
work. The project actually began as soundtrack to a film that Benjamin
had co–authored. "It was an experiment, so it was fun for
me and it was personal at the same time," he told
Jet
's Yarbrough. "Originally it wasn't supposed to be
catered to the OutKast fan. It wasn't supposed to be the package
that I delivered because people know me for rhyming. The movie was a
love story so these songs made sense." Hermes found it, from
start to finish, "as strange and rich a trip as pop offers
nowadays, a song cycle about love's battle against fear and
(self–) deception that's frequently profound, hilarious,
and very, very sexy," his
Entertainment Weekly
review asserted.

The Love Below
produced the immensely successful hit single "Hey Ya!"
This catchy, exuberant song became the No. 1 downloaded song on Internet
music sites, and a minor pop–culture phenomenon as well, with the
line "shake it like a Polaroid picture" entering the
vernacular and even prompting a cautionary response from Polaroid that
their instant–camera photos should actually not be shaken to
speed up the drying process. In November of 2003, on a campaign stop in
New England, presidential candidate General Wesley Clark even quoted the
line in an attempt to show off some pop–culture credibility to
younger voters.

Clark also weighed in on the topic that worried OutKast's fans:
whether the two solo releases marked the end of the era for the group.
But both Benjamin and Patton asserted in many interviews that their
partnership was still strong, and they had no plans to part ways.
"We were just showing how we'd each grown musically in our
own way," Patton said of the two–disc release in the
Newsweek
interview with Samuels, and told another reporter, the
New York Times
's Ogunnaike, that he and Benjamin were sitting on "six
albums worth of material. That's plenty to work with."

By mid–February,
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
had sold more than three million copies and spent seven weeks at No. 1
on the Billboard 200 chart. Nominated for six Grammy Awards, it won
Album of the Year, Rap Album of the Year, and Best
Alternative–Urban Performance for "Hey Ya!"

Patton handles the financial decisions for the business that is OutKast,
which absorbs several hours weekly. This frees Benjamin to explore his
creative side, such as the screenwriting project. He also started taking
clarinet and saxophone lessons, and enrolled in film classes at the
University of Southern California. In 2003, he appeared in a small part
in the Harrison Ford movie
Hollywood Homicide,
and was later cast in
Be Cool,
the sequel to
Get Shorty.
He was also producing a Gwen Stefani solo project slated for 2004
release. Benjamin was named one of
People
magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in the May
10, 2004, issue.

Both Benjamin and Patton are parents. Patton, who lives in Fayetteville,
Georgia, told
People
's Arnold, "I'm a soccer dad." He has a
daughter and two sons. Benjamin has son with singer Erykah Badu, with
whom he shares custody. Badu's mother was the inspiration behind
OutKast's first Grammy–winning single, "Ms.
Jackson." Mired in sorrow over their breakup, Benjamin wrote a
song in which he promised to be a good parent despite the split. As he
explained in the
People
interview, "It was about us not being together [anymore] and
thinking, 'Well, what does Erykah's mom
think?'" He told Arnold that he and his son's
grandmother "laugh and joke about it now. Her mom will still say,
'I should be getting paid for that song.'"